Can you remember when you first saw the sky?

Imagine what it must be like as a new born baby to be taken outside for the first time, when your parents take you home from the hospital and you glimpse the sky for the very first time. You feel the chill of the air for the first time. It must be an amazing moment in our young lives; and something we very soon take for granted.

But when as a young new born you become ill, just as I did. Do your parents ever think “this could be the last time my baby feels the warmth of the sun or sees the outside world”?

At about 8 weeks old I started crying 2 hours after a feed.

I was taken to the doctor who said it was probably colic.

At three months old I started passing blood in my bowel motions and went to the Accident Unit, from there my parents had to take me to Bucknall Hospital and I stayed in their isolation ward.
The next day I was transferred to Cheethams Childrens Ward at the City General Hospital.
I wasn’t to see the sky for another 3 months.

My Mum now takes up the story:-

I used to catch the 10 o clock bus to the hospital and stay with you all day until your Dad finished work, he would stay about an hour and then we went home for our tea.
We kept asking what was wrong with you but they kept saying that until they were sure they didn’t want to say anything.

You were put on a drip which started out in your arms, then your legs and finally in your head.

You had bloody diarrhoea most of the time and you were losing a lot of weight until one nurse suggested that you be given ‘Bengers’. This was something like Complan and overnight you gained 8 ounces.
Sometimes we could not see the blood but it was still there, they call this occult blood because its hidden.

One day when we got home I couldn’t settle and so we came back to the hospital and you were just lying there shivering.  You’d had a high temperature all day and so the nurses had put a fan on you.  That was the night we nearly lost you.

One day I went to our GP and told him that I wanted to know if my baby was going to die because you did not seem to be getting any better and no-one would tell us anything.  He seemed quite upset by my question and offered me a cigarette and both of us smoked a cigarette in his surgery!
He phoned the hospital and asked the consultant if he could tell us what was wrong and what the outcome might be and it was only then that they started talking about a milk allergy.

Then your consultant went on holiday and a different consultant was doing the ward rounds instead and one day he just said that he thought you should come home.

You were at home for a couple of weeks and you got a chest infection and ended up back in hospital for two weeks. 
Then you got diarrhoea again and this kept happening, you would come home and then have to go back in.  I think you spent almost 6 months of your first year in hospital.

 It was several weeks before we were told that you were allergic to milk.

I can now drink milk and am a perfectly healthy individual but I’m one of the lucky one’s. I got better, some don’t. Some children are not so fortunate and this is where the Donna Louise Children’s Hospice is so vitally important.
They help to make sure that each child has a full and happy life for as long as they are with us; and this is one of the main reasons I’m willing to put my body on the line and run 12 half marathons in 12 days for them.

The work they do is some of the most valuable and if through my running I can help them continue this work and help others through difficult times then it will be worth all the aches and pains I’ll go through as I push my body beyond what its capable of and run 157 miles over 12 days.

If you’d like to support me then please have a look at my JustGiving Page http://www.justgiving.com/6Townsrunx2

And remember to look at the sky and try to imagine what that must be like if it’s the first time you’re looking at it. Life is amazing and so are you.

Thank You